Today is the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the Narrow Water Attack…

The recent BBC Documentary ‘The Day Mountbatten Died‘ is well worth a watch. Our family used to go on holiday every year to Mullaghmore,  County Sligo. It is an area I am very familiar with. Was it bravery or arrogance that Mountbatten would holiday in Ireland every year at the height of the Troubles? Whatever the case may be, there did seem to be remarkable complacency around his security. Leaving his boat unprotected in the bay did seem remarkably lax. …

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Cartoon – A shared future (of talking to inanimate objects)

On Tuesday May 19 2015 Prince Charles met and shook hands with Gerry Adams in Galway, composing a vista unimaginable until recently. The Colonel-in-Chief of the parachute regiment meets with Uachtaráin Sinn Féin, arch-monarchist and arch-republican. Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/

Lissadell, always romantic. But the jinx lingers

It is surely the quintessential Irish story of romance, divided family loyalties,  declining wealth and fierce litigation. Over Lissadell  it has extended  through the painful transition from   the Anglo-Irish  to the meritocratic blow-ins of today who so often try to ape the  style of the ould dacency.  And still struggle continues, with the successors every bit as determined to hold on to what they have, as ever were the old gentry. The latest battle of the new era of Lissadell has resulted …

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